If copyright expires after 50 years then it appears anyone who acquires copies of photos from the AJ Jackson collection (from whatever source) can use them at will provided they can establish that the original picture was taken over 50 years ago. If the aircraft pictured was scrapped / written off over 50 years ago then proving the age of the original photo would be easy.
In my opinion your interpretation is correct except for the duration of the copyright. It is only for Crown Copyright that the protection of the image applies for 50 years from the year the picture was taken. For all other photographs in the UK, including those taken by professional photographers and individuals, the work is copyrighted for the life of the author plus 70 years. For example, I believe that this would be the case with Charles Brown collection in the custody of RAF Museum.
Greyer heads may recall the nonsense of the 388th BG pictures that I scanned from an album held at the Swan Inn at Coney Weston. Taken by a US serviceman on duty in 1943 they were well out of copyright, but there was all manner of whinging from various directions in case the low res images I posted here were used by unapproved authors without permission. Now if you check the 388th web site you will see there is some odd ‘copyright’ notice that seems to imply the creation of a ‘new’ copyright since the expiry of the old one and to somebody who was not the creator.
A action wouldn’t stand an earthly under UK law as I understand it, but apparently works in the US.
In fact similar practices are fairly widespread around the world, only manifesting themselves in different ways. Many image agencies, museums, archives and private collectors have large stocks of pre-WW2 and WW2 images which have either already passed to public domain or will do so in the next few years. These have traditionally brought steady revenue to these organisations, meaning that there is an incentive in preventing or delaying their use in public domain. Some of these institutions try to limit user’s rights in other ways than copyright. One example would be requiring you to sign a form to get access to images, asking (in a legally binding way) to specify how you intend to use the material – and be charged accordingly. Another would be banning the copying of the material entirely, such as in the aforementioned cases. The third approach is making an impression that posessing a negative, high-resolution copy or similar entitles the owner to some special ‘new’ copyright.”
Purely an observation of course but, who owns the copyright if someone has taken eg a digipic of an original, especially where retrieval systems are concerned and the item can be downloaded to a computer but deleted from your card reader/sim card.
My 2 pennies here. Mere reproduction of a work does not usually mean that author of the copy gains any rights over the copied image or document. In US this has been tried in court in the publicised case of Corel vs. Bridgeman Art Library, which curiously involved also interpretation of the British law. The case itself was the result of Bridgeman Art Library questioning the right of Corel Corporation to reproduce high-quality photographic slides that the Library had made from original paintings which were in the public domain. The court established that the labour and judgement involved in the creation of a high-quality photographic copy of an image does not constitute new work subject to own copyright. There’s a good Wikipedia article on this case, but you will see that it really does not bring definitive answers to anything.
That’s more about the grey zones of copyright.
/Martin
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